This thesis examines the relationship between Korean film and modernity by conducting a survey of the representation of cars, trains, and the city throughout (South) Korean film history. There have been several remarkable changes in these representations over time: the train, first the awe-inspiring symbol of Korean technological advancement in the 1890s, becomes the brutal symbol of Japanese oppression just a few decades later. The city in Korean film is politically and socially charged for most of the 20th century, a place where innocent people are morally corrupted or physically assaulted. But by the 21st century, trains and cars are now toys for action characters to manipulate, and the city is now a neutral backdrop for pure entertainment in blockbuster films such as Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016), Ashfall (Lee Hae-jun and Kim Byung-seo, 2019), and Peninsula (Yeon Sang-ho, 2020). There are several reasons for this, one of which I propose as the inherently procapitalist and pro-modernity nature of the blockbuster film.

Thesis advisor: David Rasmussen / The debate between political liberalism and liberal perfectionism has taken center stage in contemporary literature on liberal political theory. According to political liberalism, the most sensible thing to do for political philosophy is to apply “the principle of toleration” to itself in order to arrive at a public conception of justice that is independent of controversial moral, philosophical, and religious doctrines. According to liberal perfectionism, basic liberal ideals and principles are compatible with the view that the state should direct citizens to live good or meaningful lives, and discourage them from pursuing bad or worthless ones. Both political liberalism and liberal perfectionism have developed substantial arguments to support their positions, and the debate between them has helped to shape the intellectual landscape of contemporary political philosophy. At the periphery of the mainstream liberal discourse, there has been growing interest in establishing and maintaining at least some liberal and democratic ideals and institutions in the burgeoning and increasingly pluralistic region of East Asia. One of the recent developments has led to sophisticated attempts to bring out the political side of Confucianism, the dominant source of cultural influence in the region. As some Confucian scholars have pointed out, East Asian societies, like their Western counterparts, are under the influence of reasonable pluralism, which diversifies and even divides the population in a region that used to be highly homogeneous. Thus, a plausible political theory and a timely model of democracy for East Asia must reflect this crucial change. This dissertation aims to contribute to both the internal debate in liberalism and the application of political liberalism to the process of democratization in East Asia. In my view, political liberalism offers the most promising vision for liberal democracy, and it can be defended against three perfectionist objections. First, the objection that the political conception of justice cannot be separated from morality in the comprehensive sense will be defused by introducing what I call the public conception of morality. Second, the objection that political liberalism’s asymmetric treatment of the right and the good is problematic will be addressed by defending the distinction between foundational and justificatory disagreements. Third, the objection that Rawls’ inclusion of epistemic elements in the concept of reasonableness necessarily makes political liberalism perfectionist and weakens the political liberal account of respect for persons will be defeated by revising the understanding of epistemic reasonableness. Beyond Rawls’ original intention to limit the scope of political liberalism to only existing and well-ordered liberal democracies, political liberalism has the potential to inspire and contribute to democratic establishment and improvement in East Asia. Specifically, I will first demonstrate that both comprehensive and moderate approaches to political Confucianism suffer from practical and theoretical difficulties. Then, with the support of political liberalism, I will propose a model of democracy that has a multivariate structure for citizens to come to terms with democracy in their own ways, a neutral state to ensure the establishment and stability of democracy, and an active public role for Confucianism to prevent it from being confined to the private sphere. This model represents a more promising future for democracy in East Asia. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: Robert Ross / The regional great power competition between the United States and China is escalating in various dimensions such as economic, political, and security realms. Who instigates such tension and how? To answer these questions, this paper inquires whether it is the declining power, the United States, or the rising power, China, that causes regional tension to heighten. Applying the theories on power transition and power transition war to the three case studies on South Korea, Taiwan, and the South China Sea dispute in Vietnam, how the United States is provoking China to adopt policies that increase tension will be examined. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

No description available.

This dissertation analyzes the role of missionaries in the inception of the transnational adoption movement between East Asia and United States from 1949 to 1960. While copious psychological and social scientific scholarship on adoption exists, the history of the adoption movement is relatively understudied. Recent research has accentuated adoption history from a geopolitical perspective, yet it fails to note the complex and diversified theological distinctiveness among the missionaries associated with the movement. By examining archival materials written by missionaries, this study narrates a more nuanced historical account of the transnational adoption movement, with a significant emphasis on racial issues and the theme of global friendship. Chapter one provides historical context by situating the transnational adoption movement between America and East Asia in the decades after the Second World War. Chapter two argues that Robert Pierce and Everett Swanson solidified the link between child sponsorship and adoption, consequently establishing the foundation for the later adoption movement. In chapters three and four, the study demonstrates that Pearl Buck and Helen Doss alleviated racism in America by opposing “racial matching” via their potent prose and adoption narratives. Chapter five examines Harry and Bertha Holt’s unconventional method of placing adoptees exclusively in Christian homes and the conflict with social workers that ensued. This study departs from the dominant perspective that the formation of the transnational adoption movement was directly related to the creation of neo-colonial relations between America and East Asia. Simultaneously, it refutes the prevalent hagiographic accounts that depict missionaries’ engagement as rescue missions focused exclusively on child welfare. By situating missionaries’ stories in the context of postwar America, the study demonstrates that the transnational adoption movement was part of a broader social phenomenon. Changing definitions of families, postwar prosperity, missionaries’ active anti-racism propaganda, and their increasing interest in global friendship all contributed to the inauguration and spread of transnational adoptions in the United States. / 2024-03-31

The study is designed to enhance an understanding of the accounting systems in Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. The stable social structure, steady political progress, and rapid economic development in the five countries provide a fertile ground for the development of their accounting systems. In the five countries, sufficient statutory and nonstatutory regulations that upgrade quality of accountants and improve financial disclosure by businesses exist. The demand for accountants exceeds their supply throughout the five countries. The accounting profession is prosperous and thriving. Although the five accounting systems still exhibit some differences in ünancial reporting, they are all moving toward more financial disclosure and increasing harmonization of accounting standards. The five countries have growing accounting influence on their neighboring Asian countries because their systems tend to be emulated by these neighbors due to their economic achievements. The accounting systems in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore can be considered to belong to one category owing to their common British tradition. However, because many American-educated students of the five countries with accounting majors have returned to their home countries, the impact of the American accounting system on the five accounting systems is on the rise. The study also shows that the five accounting systems can benefit from each other’s experiences. / Ph. D.

[Truncated abstract] The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis raised serious questions about the nature of East Asia's rise to economic prosperity, once labelled as a 'miracle' by the World Bank. In particular, East Asian governments were criticised for allowing rampant corruption to pervade their economies. At a conceptual level, the overwhelming majority of studies argue that corruption, defined as the misuse of public office for private gain, has impeded growth. Empirically, many studies have shown the detrimental impact of corruption on economic growth but few have analysed the particular effect of corruption on East Asia's economic growth in the years leading up to the 1997 Crisis, a period characterised by superior economic growth rates against the backdrop of corruption. This study seeks to fill that gap. By virtue of its clandestine nature, any study on corruption is subject to measurement limitations and this study is no exception. The only available data on corruption are indices published by a handful of various international organisations. Each of these indices follows a similar format: they are based partly or wholly on surveys of the corporate sector in each of the sample countries, the results of which are converted into corruption scores and used to rank the sample countries. Although there is a general consistency in rankings across the different indices, the survey questions tend to equate corruption with bribery. In one survey which questioned respondents about corruption and bribery in separate questions, the results indicated that the two are not necessarily synonymous at least in the minds of respondents. A brief analysis of the nature of corruption within East Asia reveals why the tendency to equate corruption with bribery can be misleading, and therefore raises doubts about the credibility of the aforementioned corruption indices. Many countries in East Asia are shown to harbour a network of patron-client relationships within a centralised framework. ... When using the available corruption indices as measures of corruption in a corruption-growth model that is applied to cross-sectional data covering 141 countries in 1996, corruption is found to have a significant positive relationship with economic growth for two of the corruption indices. However, no particular significant relationship is found to exist for East Asian countries within the sample. The corruption indices are then combined to produce a single index of corruption which is then used in a corruption-growth model and applied to panel data covering 33 countries over a twenty year period from 1984 to 2003. This time the corruption variable is found to have a significant positive relationship with economic growth for East Asian countries (excluding Singapore) during 1986-1996. Finally, the concept of rent-seeking is examined as an alternative to the typical principal-agent model of corruption used in the literature, based on its strong resonance with the particular nature of corruption in East Asia. A measure of rent-seeking is developed, and using cross-sectional data for 57 countries in 1996 reveals that rent-seeking has a significant positive relationship with economic growth.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

This thesis explores the impact of democratic institutions amongst the Asian developing countries. There has been debate about the successful economic rise of these seven countries; however, questions remain over the differing levels of economic performance. Institutional literature has paid scant attention to the role of democracy, and how this has influenced economic development throughout Asia. This thesis explores the relationships between four democratic institutions - cabinets, party-systems, electoral systems and bicameralism - and economic performance across six developing democracies, in addition to Japan. Using current democratic institutional literature derived from OECD countries, this thesis expands the scope to include new countries. The analysis employs both statistical methods and case studies to assess the relationships between four democratic institutions and seven socio-economic indicators between 1986 and 2005. The linear regressions provided evidence that coalition cabinets are correlated with lower levels of inflation and unemployment, but large multi-party legislatures are not. This thesis also found correlations between strong second legislative chambers and higher FDI, lower tariffs and higher income inequality. Although this is an exploratory thesis, I suggest that democratic institutional analysis within Asia does warrant further examination; an assessment of the specific institutions may provide us with clearer notions regarding economic development.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-125).